State against all-India test for engg admissions

Higher Education Minister Basa­v­araj Rayareddy on Tuesday said Karnataka is against a common entrance test for admission to undergraduate engineering courses as proposed by the Centre.

The Centre or All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has so far not sought Karnataka’s opinion on the proposed Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Main across the country for all technical institutes from 2018, he said. The AICTE will formulate regulations making it mandatory for all technical institutions to accept JEE-Main scores for admitting students. This is planned to avoid multiple tests for getting an engineering seat.

Rayareddy said, “The Common Entrance Test conducted by Karnataka is working well. Why the Centre or AICTE should take over the exams? In a federal system, states should have freedom to function. Anyway, the Centre has not sought the opinion of Karnataka. We will convey our opinion when sought.”

Director of Technical Education H U Talwar said, “The Centre or AICTE has not issued any guidelines regarding the proposed common entrance exam. I have come to know about it only through the media. It is said that the new system would be i­mp­­lemented from the academic year 2018-19.” Tamil Nadu has already opposed the Centre’s proposal to conduct a single entrance exam for engineering courses. It has argued that the Centre can’t impose such rule on the states.

Tamil Nadu had reportedly registered its protest at a meeting that was convened by the Human Resources Ministry and AICTE on January 11, 2017. Hence, the Centre has decided to hold another round of consultations with the states.

Rayareddy and Talwar said they are unaware of any meeting having been held to take the opinion of the states.